I ran ZoneAlarm software firewalls for years and came to hate them because they were so hard to get rid of. I’ve had no experience with their hardware. Belkin is IMHO a low-end product.
I loathe Netgear.
I’ve had good service from Buffalo. I currently have 4 TeraStations, a router, an AirStation wireless-to-ethernet bridge, etc., and have never had a single failure.
I’m also a big fan of SMC networking products.
Prolly no help to you, but there’s .02 worth...
MM
However, when looking at a printer server be very careful to do your homework and get very specific information that says it WILL work with the brand(s) and model(s) of printer you plan to use.
If the literature and specs of the server do not specifically name your brand/model of printer, DO NOT assume that it will work. Likely, it will not.
I speak from experience. Caveat emptor.
Oh yeah...one other thing....as far as regular old wired routers go...get an SMC. They rock.
I’d like to get rid of Symantec products on my machines. What is the best free/cheap replacement?
leo laporte today was saying
don’t use zone alarm
if you have a router.
The Zonealarm system will provide extra security at a price, but unless you have very naive users (young kids?) who click on any link they see, it won’t provide much more protection than a good router and anti-virus software.
It’s more substantial negative is the proprietary Super-G Wifi system. Unless you have Super-G cards (atheros chipset, primarily in Netgear and D-Link cards) the router will run at standard 54mbps speeds.
I would recommend getting a Wifi-N router. Any new laptop will include a Wireless-N card, so it makes sense to get an N router even though the speed boost isn’t quite all the way to 300mpbs. N also features greater range, so you will see an improvement even with a standard G card.
I have the Belkin N1 router and have been very happy with it. You really want to avoid the Pre-N routers now that the final draft standard has been approved. You want to look for a router that supports the “Draft 2.0” specification, which is the final spec.
My OS of choice (given what’s out there) is W2K.
Zonealarm has a bad attitude about W2K.